who decided that?
the rules dictating life in the universe
i'm a big anime fan.
when i was in first year uni, i watched an anime called the seven deadly sins. theres a character in the series called Escanor, and he is the lion sin of pride. he has one scene that i will never forget.
he's fighting some villain and it looks like he's getting shit on. the villain is talking a lot of shit, as villains do: "your attacks have no effect on me", "you can never defeat me", etc.
Escanor looks at this guys and asks him a single question: "who decided that?". Escanor states that he is the one that decides things and proceeds to beat the villain's ass.
I am not so proud; i won't claim that i am the one who decides. but i think the question is valid.
who does? and to get a bit more philosophical, does anyone?
the work i do involves a lot of experimenting. here's my general process:
i have an idea for some new trinket
i try to build it
it doesn't work
i try to figure out why
that last step is the most important. trying to understand why something works (or doesn't) is where all the learning happens.
most of my work has to do with electricity and magnetism. that means i end up studying a lot of physics. i try not to get too wrapped up in the calculations; my main goal is to build an intuition for how things should work. "if i change x, then i expect y to do z" and so forth.
let me give you an example. i'm currently trying to build an ion thruster. a device that uses electricity to ionize air molecules and create thrust. i recently learned that when you leave your high voltage leads in open air there are 3 things that can happen:
you get a plasma arc between the leads
you get corona discharge emitted from the ends of the leads
you get nothing at all
which result you get depends on how far the 2 leads are from each other and how high your voltage is. the difference in distance between getting corona discharge vs arc discharge can be a fraction of a millimetre. that fascinates to me!
the natural next question to ask is "why?" what changes in that fraction of a millimetre? how does corona discharge differ from a plasma arc on a fundamental level? the answer must have something to do with air molecules, but i don't know what it is yet.
all i really want to say is that there is always a reason behind everything.
the universe is the one that decides, and it dictates its rules through the laws of physics. it is the ultimate authority because there is no way to disobey.
a key part of my job right now is to understand those rules and figure out how to bend them to my will. that's the fun part :)
i expect it to be a long and hard journey lol, so wish me luck!